Google Tapping Into Wind Power

Delivering results for more than 400 million search queries a day requires a great deal of electricity. 2008 estimates of the power required for Google’s 450,000 servers range upwards of 20 megawatts.

In an effort to further green its electricity sources, Google has announced a purchase agreement with a 114 megawatt wind farm in Iowa.

The 20-year green power purchase agreement commences on July 30, with Google sourcing wind generated electricity from the NextEra Energy Resources Story County II facility.

Urs Hoelzle, Senior Vice President, Operations said the supply would be enough to power several of the company’s data centers. “We’ve been excited about this deal because taking 114 megawatts of wind power off the market for so long means producers have the incentive and means to build more renewable energy capacity for other customers.”

In 2007, Google made the decision become carbon neutral. The company has tackled the goal through a variety of strategies – by building energy efficient data centers, powering facilities with renewable energy and purchasing carbon offsets for the emissions it cannot directly eliminate.

Google took delivery of four 100kW Bloom Energy Servers, a fuel cell device that converts solid oxide fuel into electricity through a clean electro-chemical process rather than combustion, in July 2008.

Google’s Mountain View headquarters has 1.6 megawatts of rooftop solar panels that provide the power needed for 30% of the peak electricity demand for the buildings on which they are installed.